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Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel Kindle Edition

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,142 ratings

Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Tom Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.
How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the 300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.
And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work -- and stop throwing away 100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the "war" against this global, highly organized business.
Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers.
The cast of characters includes "Bin Laden," the Bolivian coca guide; Old Lin," the Salvadoran gang leader; "Starboy," the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hitmen, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility.
More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business,
Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.
Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2016: Chances are when you hear someone talking about the drug trade what comes to mind is an image from T.V. or the movies—seedy dealers, million-dollar busts, films like Traffic and shows like The Wire. In Narconomics, author Tom Wainwright looks at the drug business as…a business. And it’s fascinating. We already know how internet shopping has changed the way people buy and sell goods, but in the course of his research Wainwright learned that all manner of illegal drugs are increasingly being bought and sold online, too. Interesting, right? Just wait until you read how customer service and product quality have been impacted by this change… And this is just one of the many ways in which an economist’s view paints a very different picture than the one we’re used to seeing. Wainwright’s fresh look at a decades-old problem shows not only how the narcotics industry is run, but also how the “war on drugs” could be more effective if law enforcement started thinking about the drug business as just another corporate jungle. --Seira Wilson

Review

“[Tom Wainwright] brings a fine and balanced analytical mind to some very good research…By looking at the drug trade as a business, Wainwright is able to reveal much about why it wreaks such havoc in Central and South America. Wainwright show[s] how drug violence is not so much senseless but the devastating result of economic calculations taken to their brutal extreme. [His] conclusion is titled 'Why Economists Make the Best Police Officers.' It is one of the pithiest and most persuasive arguments for drug law reform I have ever read.”—Misha Glenny, New York Times Sunday Book Review



"Tom Wainwright has powerfully argued in favor of legalizing drugs. He says that the policies aimed at stifling the drug trade seem to be misdirected and have failed... a controversial but well-argued book... a must-read for everyone interested in solving the drug issue. Wainwright makes a lot of sense at a time when the world seems helpless against drug traffickers."—
The Washington Book Review



“[Wainwright's] book is courageous on several levels… [he] challenges everyone at once—the dealers, the drug czars, and the bystanders in between. A daring work of investigative journalism and a well-reasoned argument for smarter drug policies.”—
Kirkus Reviews



“Readers interested in the intersection of crime, economics, entrepreneurship, and law enforcement will find this work fascinating.”—
Library Journal




“Tom Wainwright of the
Economist brings a fine and balanced analytical mind to some very good research…”—Minneapolis Star Tribune



“A lively and engaging book, informed by both dogged reporting and gleanings from academic research...”—
Wall Street Journal

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B017QL8XKE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs (February 23, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 23, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 12077 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,142 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,142 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book engaging, fun, and easy to read. They appreciate the great insights and research into how different businesses are run. Readers also praise the writing style as well-written, easy to understand, and well-thought-out.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

83 customers mention "Readability"77 positive6 negative

Customers find the book engaging, fun, and easy to read. They say it's interesting and educational for anyone interested in the drug culture. Readers also mention the book is leavened with lively anecdotes and colorful characters.

"...The book is also leavened with lively anecdotes and colourful characters...." Read more

"...NARCONOMICS was fantastic - really interesting and enjoyable. It was my go-to summer audiobook! The narrator was excellent, by the way...." Read more

"...A solid and engaging book, broken out into digestible chapters that focus on different components of the drug trade - production, HR, the impact of..." Read more

"An enjoyable read and I learned a few concepts along the way...." Read more

71 customers mention "Insight"65 positive6 negative

Customers find the book well-written and researched. They say it's a welcome groundwork for any informed opinion on the matter of drug crime. Readers also mention the book is filled with more facts, figures, and research than expected. They find the descriptions interesting and the rational examination of how drug cartels operate.

"Very interesting insight into how drug cartels operate...." Read more

"...A lot of them I drop after chapter 2 and move on.NARCONOMICS was fantastic - really interesting and enjoyable...." Read more

"Just got the book today and already 140 pages in. Simply fascinating stories of drug lords, cartels, smugglers and the issues they encounter...." Read more

"...This extremely well written and researched book gives me a set of arguments to present to our state representatives...." Read more

22 customers mention "Writing style"20 positive2 negative

Customers find the writing style of the book extremely well-written and easy to read. They also say the problems are interesting and well-thought-out. Readers also mention the narrator is excellent and the author is brave.

"...It was my go-to summer audiobook! The narrator was excellent, by the way. And I literally had some laugh out loud moments...." Read more

"...Very engaging, well written, and has pictures too." Read more

"...This extremely well written and researched book gives me a set of arguments to present to our state representatives...." Read more

"...The statistics regarding the problem are interesting and well thought out...." Read more

Solid Book But You Won't Launch A Drug Cartel Anytime Soon
4 out of 5 stars
Solid Book But You Won't Launch A Drug Cartel Anytime Soon
An enjoyable read and I learned a few concepts along the way. The author leverages both Microeconomics 101 and Macroeconomics 101 to illustrate how a cartel can mimic the operational efficiencies of a publicly traded company on the S&P 500.Page 208 describes in detail how the cartel create heroin in the mountains of the Sierra Madre.And Chapter 7: Innovating Ahead of the Law -- favorite chapter in the book highlighting the regulatory experiment in New Zealand.I do recommend reading the Conclusion (Why Economist Make the Best Police Officers) on Page 239 *first* before reading Chapter 1 and onward.
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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017
Nearly every book about the drug trade suffers from one fundamental flaw: guesstimates about the financial and other figures related to drug trafficking. This is so even when academics pretend they are relying on solid data while actually making an ideological case about drugs (or America). But 34-year-old journalist Tom Wainwright, the Britain editor of the Economist and the magazine’s former correspondent for Mexico and Central America and the Caribbean, has a university background in economics, politics and philosophy, which makes for clear analysis and a creative approach to figuring out the realities of the underworld.

As one example of how the value drug seizures are falsely estimated by officials, Wainwright cites a Mexico City marijuana haul which US newspapers reported was worth over half-a-billion US dollars. The actual value, says Wainwright, was probably more like US$10 million. That’s because all drugs have to be processed before being sold, so using the street value for crops destroyed, Wainwright points out, is like estimating the value of a steer based on the cost of a steak in a restaurant.

Throughout the book’s ten chapters, Wainwright applies economic concepts like monopolies and labour supply to show how the drug trade works. He deals not only with staples like marijuana and cocaine, but also designer drugs created in laboratories and discusses how the Internet has affected the trade in illegal narcotics.

Applying business models, Wainwright explains that “Cartels play a role more like that of large supermarkets, buying produce from farmers, processing and packaging it, then selling it to consumers.”

The book is also leavened with lively anecdotes and colourful characters. Wainwright writes that “Straightforward ineptitude is frequently the cause of drug traffickers’ downfall, according to the Home Office researchers, who noted that the ‘soap opera lifestyles’ of dealers and their associates were often what caused them to be caught,” In one such case, a courier who had to hand over $US500,000 in cash decided to put the bills on a bed and have sex with his 17-year-old outside woman, taking selfies while doing so. When the girlfriend showed the pics to the driver’s wife, the wife became so enraged that she tipped off the police about him.

Much of the book is devoted to showing why existing anti-trafficking polices aren’t working. For instance, Wainwright explains that
destroying crops doesn’t raise the prices that wholesale farmers charge to cartels, because the armed groups that control the cocaine trade in Colombia act as monopsonies. That means that one group has a monopoly in specific regions, like cable companies in Trinidad and Tobago until recently. All that destroying crops does is make poor farmers poorer, says Wainwright, while the cartels’ profits remain the same.

Moreover, he cites figures showing that, from coca leaf to cocaine powder, the mark-up is more than 30,000 percent. Put another way, even if destroying crops tripled the farmer’s price, the retail price in the United States would rise less than one percent.

“This does not seem like a good return on the billions of dollars invested in disrupting the supply of leaves in the Andes,” Wainwright dryly remarks.

The final chapter is titled, with seeming egoism, “Why Economists Make the Best Police Officers.” But Wainwright’s book proves his core point as to why an economics approach rather than an ideological one will do most to reduce the ill effects of drug trafficking.
6 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2022
Very interesting insight into how drug cartels operate. It turns out that they are a lot more rational than many of the policies our governments employ to combat them! The only detractor is that the author writes from an organizational point of view. In other words, he's a better business analyst than economist. This becomes important when discussing some of the proposed solutions. However, in the end, the author does a great job advancing our understanding the War on Drugs and why governments are losing.
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2017
An easy five stars! I work in strategy consulting so I download a fair number of new strategy books. A lot of them I drop after chapter 2 and move on.

NARCONOMICS was fantastic - really interesting and enjoyable. It was my go-to summer audiobook! The narrator was excellent, by the way. And I literally had some laugh out loud moments. The author is good as Steven Johnson, by favorite current non fiction author, and that's a high standard. Readers who enjoy this book may enjoy Steven Johnson (though he writes about technology & society not business per se) and the recent book Brand Luther, taking an economist's/marketer's/business strategist's view of the Reformation.

Here was a laugh out loud moment for me, and let me say, I am here improvising the quotation that I heard last week as audio, so it's not a literal quote. "Wainwright writes that on the Dark Net, he gets rapid customer-centric feedback from anonymous encrypted messaging. "Even when I was deliberately trying to annoy, as when I messaged an online crack pipe dealer Violent86 whether he could engrave a friend's name on a gift pipe. Within a few hours, he politely emailed back that he couldn't, but he wished me luck in finding a vender that could."
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2022
British journalist Tom Wainwright’s masterful overview of the modern drug trade, its key players, and significant trends is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the how the drug trade functions at the highest level, what kinds of things it takes to run such a business, and how these organizations are keeping up with the times (through about 2015).

A solid and engaging book, broken out into digestible chapters that focus on different components of the drug trade - production, HR, the impact of the Internet, and the looming specter of US legalization efforts - the author keeps things moving while offering insightful vignettes from the very real people involved, across the public and private sectors, albeit with relatively few insights from drug lords themselves.

If you liked Clear and Present Danger, this’ll be right up your alley!
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2023
An enjoyable read and I learned a few concepts along the way. The author leverages both Microeconomics 101 and Macroeconomics 101 to illustrate how a cartel can mimic the operational efficiencies of a publicly traded company on the S&P 500.

Page 208 describes in detail how the cartel create heroin in the mountains of the Sierra Madre.

And Chapter 7: Innovating Ahead of the Law -- favorite chapter in the book highlighting the regulatory experiment in New Zealand.

I do recommend reading the Conclusion (Why Economist Make the Best Police Officers) on Page 239 *first* before reading Chapter 1 and onward.
Customer image
4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Book But You Won't Launch A Drug Cartel Anytime Soon
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2023
An enjoyable read and I learned a few concepts along the way. The author leverages both Microeconomics 101 and Macroeconomics 101 to illustrate how a cartel can mimic the operational efficiencies of a publicly traded company on the S&P 500.

Page 208 describes in detail how the cartel create heroin in the mountains of the Sierra Madre.

And Chapter 7: Innovating Ahead of the Law -- favorite chapter in the book highlighting the regulatory experiment in New Zealand.

I do recommend reading the Conclusion (Why Economist Make the Best Police Officers) on Page 239 *first* before reading Chapter 1 and onward.
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Customer image
Customer image
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2023
Just got the book today and already 140 pages in. Simply fascinating stories of drug lords, cartels, smugglers and the issues they encounter. Very engaging, well written, and has pictures too.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Monica Saenz De Datshkovsy
5.0 out of 5 stars Bueno
Reviewed in Mexico on August 27, 2023
Está interesante, pero creo que, para México, le falta tratar la diversificación y sofisticación de las estrategias financieras. Y también falta analizar las consecuencias de descabezar los grandes cárteles, y la consiguiente explosión de narco negocios y bandas criminales dedicadas a actividades diversas como extorsión, tráfico de personas, prostitución, secuestro, cobros de piso, etc.
Umran
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely fabulous read!
Reviewed in India on March 1, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed the authors take on the subject. Looking at such a massive criminal business from the lens of an economist is an idea worth exploring. I think this book could be turned into a Holywood blockbuster or Netflix should def pay attention.

Pick this up, I highly recommend it. Thank me later.
Marcelo
5.0 out of 5 stars Livro fantástico
Reviewed in Brazil on May 18, 2020
Entrega rápida e bem embalada.
Quanto ao livro, conteúdo sensacional. A análise investigativa e as comparações do tráfico com práticas de indústrias é muito interessante e gera reflexões.
Recomendo para qualquer um que tem interesse em políticas públicas, econômica ou até mesmo jornalismo investigativo.
Federica & Davide
5.0 out of 5 stars Bel libro.
Reviewed in Italy on March 25, 2020
Bello, la lettura scorre bene ed è molto piacevole. Certo, bisogna sapere un minimo di inglese per poterselo godere a pieno, però consigliato, soprattutto per studenti che studiano economia!
Stefan
5.0 out of 5 stars The 21st Century Narcotics edition of 'The Prince'.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2017
While my coffee is brewing, I felt it was the perfect time to review this product.

I should mention that this review is incredibly premature - one is preparing to proceed on to chapter five - but I felt it merited plaudits.

Having a loose interest in economics, this is a fascinating read about the logistics of the drug trade - all the way from production, to the consumer - applied with economics, and amazingly, it all makes sense! With some brilliant stories, I find myself laughing at times, but also sympathetic towards the victims of this horrible industry of crime. Wainwright's style of writing in this book is very easy to read and - thus far - been a good introduction to economics, with easy-to-digest esoteric. With specific events Wainwright examines, I find myself - rather strangely, possibly anxiously - questioning if the drugs trade is such a bad thing.

In a way, I find it interchangeable with Machiavelli's 'The Prince', and having loved that piece of political satire, I can't see myself going back on my untimely judgement. Perhaps 'El Jefe' would be a more apt title for the book. Give it a read, at least until chapter five!

Now please excuse me... My coffee is finished brewing, and my afternoon spliff awaits!

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